White papers are a staple of B2B content marketing. These pieces, often used as lead magnets, allow companies to go deep on topics relevant to their target audiences and can provide real value to prospects.
Producing a white paper can be a labor-intensive process. Most are meaty pieces of content, meaning at least four (but likely more) pages long. Depending on your approach and topic, it could require research and interviews, which can take time, not to mention the time it takes to write and design the piece. Pinning down the cost of producing one is a little difficult, but a quick Google search shows that professionally written white papers range between $2k and $4k depending on the piece's complexity.
If you’re putting that much effort into creating your white paper you should be putting in the effort to make sure people read them, too.
Offer an Engaging Experience
Maybe it’s just us, but a lot of the white papers we’ve run across are dense, hard to read, and drier than a desert. There’s no rule that says they need to be this way, and if there were we’d encourage you to break it. Our advice for making white papers more interesting is the same we’d give for most pieces of content:
An executive summary or abstract should entice readers to take action and download the piece. Finally, include a call to action in your white paper along with contact information. It is a marketing piece, after all.
Use Your Website as a Content Promotion Tool
Now that you have a well-written, beautifully designed white paper, you’ll need to decide where it lives and how to get it in front of your target audience. Since your white paper is meant to be a lead magnet it’s smart to restrict access to it behind a gate — at least for a while.
Create a dedicated landing page for your white paper that includes a short form — Name, Email, Company. Anything more than that and you risk missing out on capturing leads. Keep content on the page brief — you could simply repurpose your paper’s executive summary and use it as web copy. Include a compelling statistic or fact from the paper, a few bullet points about what readers will gain from reading it, and a call to action button that can’t be missed.
If you have a content library section on your website make it your featured content for a month or two, depending on your company’s content governance practices. If your CMS allows for it, make sure it’s surfacing as relevant content on pages that relate to your white paper’s topic.
Drive Readers to Your White Paper
Promoting it on your website is a given, but that may not be the best place for all of your prospects to find it. When we work with our clients to promote their white papers, we recommend a mix of channels, some paid and some organic.
Social: Take advantage of your company’s social presence. Create an attention-getting graphic, and post-copy that teases the paper’s content, and how readers will benefit from downloading it. Consider using information from the paper itself, whether it’s a notable statistic or a quote from an expert, and use it in your social image. If you have the budget to do so, we recommend running a paid campaign so your promotion efforts can reach people outside of your current followers. CID’s digital strategy team often recommends running a campaign on LinkedIn to our B2B clients specifically because of the platform’s built-in lead gen ad option.
Paid Search: Google, and increasingly Bing, are good platforms for reaching a lot of people within narrow targeting criteria. It’s like casting a wide net in a pond stocked with very specific fish.
Native Advertising: Similar to display ads, native ads are designed to complement the web content they appear alongside, providing a more seamless experience for viewers. Some native ads include space for a short preview of your content, so dust off that executive summary and rework it a bit if you choose this ad style.
Email: Use your email lists to share your white paper. You could build a whole email campaign around the offer, or you could include it in a regular email newsletter if you have one. In either case, you’ll want to have a way to share the piece without requiring your prospects to fill out a form since you already have their contact info.
Your Sales Team: Encourage your sales team to use your white papers as part of their sales enablement toolkit. A new white paper that’s relevant to their prospects’ needs is a great opportunity to restart conversations that may have stalled out.
Does it Need to Be a “White Paper?”
Nope. Just as there is no rule that says white papers need to be dry and academic, there’s no rule that says you have to call it a white paper. If that term feels too formal for your brand, call it something else! For example, if your brand is heavily associated with a certain color you could swap out “white” for that color instead and really make it your own. Imagine a company dedicated to safety products issuing an “Orange Paper” about their work. That alone would help their content stand out. Here are a few other options to consider:
When to Open the Gate
Keeping all of your white papers gated all the time will eventually lead to frustrated users. When a piece has run its course as a lead magnet, make it available to anyone who visits your site without asking for their email address. The cadence at which you gate and ungate content depends on how often you’re producing pieces and how valuable they are to people in your industry.
If your white paper is explaining a hot topic in your field, it’s a good idea to keep it gated. If your white paper is still relevant but not as tantalizing as it was when first published, make it available to anyone who wants it. Doing so builds up goodwill with prospects, and can help boost your site’s SEO thanks to all those great industry keywords embedded in your content.
A good rule of thumb is to keep your most premium content gated until it needs to be replaced by another high-value piece. Being strategic about creating and distributing your lead magnet pieces will help ensure the effort your team put into creating your content was more than worth it.
Need help with writing, designing, or distributing your content to prospects? Get in touch with CID. We can handle as much or as little of your content marketing efforts as you need.
Creative. Strategic. Crategic? (We'll workshop it.) Rebecca's part of our award-winning marketing & strategy team where she turns ideas into words and words into content.